Pocket toilet and advertising device



Dec. 25, 1962 H. TROYA POCKET TOILET AND ADVERTISING DEVICE Filed July 28, 1960 HENRY TROY 1- YINVENTOR.

his Arron -E) I nited States Patented Dec. 25, i952 3,070,101 POCKET TOILET AND ADVERTISING DEVICE Henry Troya, 322 5. Market St., Inglewood, Calif. Filed July 28, 1960, Ser. No. 45,865 1 Claim. (Cl. 132-764) My invention relates to an advertising device of the kind that is also an useful pocket toilet article which may be produced at such small cost that it is suited for give away purposes.

Many varieties of such give away advertising articles are known but in general are relatively expensive to produce and are not adapted to carry the advertising of different concerns without requiring the making of special mold inserts, in the case of small cast metal or praetic articles, or if the advertising material is printed on a label carried on the device, being subject to the disadvantage of deterioration of the label and the printed matter appearing thereon.

It is an object of this invention to provide a small pocket toilet article in which a filler plate carrying advertising material is enclosed and cannot be removed once the article is completed, the advertising material being clearly visible and fully protected from wear for the life of the article which is of indefinite duration.

Further objects and features of the invention will hereinafter appear from the following specification and accompanying illustrative drawings in which:

FIGURE 1 is a plan View of the top of the pocket advertising and toilet article of my invention showing a filler plate advertising material in position therein, and an upper edge member partly broken away;

FIGURE 2 is a section on the line 2--2 of FIGURE 1 with the filler plate omitted;

FIGURE 3 is a section on the line 33 of FIGURE 1;

FIGURE 4 is a fragmentary detail view drawn on a larger scale, of the portion of FIGURE 2 indicated by the dotted circle 4 in FIGURE 2; and

FIGURE 5 is a perspective view showing cards carrying advertising material and a backing element or filler plate adapted to be inserted in the article before the insertion of a part completely closing the article.

The drawings of FIGURES 1 through 3 represent about twice full size, a preferred embodiment of my invention.

Referring now to FIGURE 1 of the drawing the numeral indicates the article which is shown as of generally rectangular shape and of integral construction, although not necessarily so.

The article comprises side walls 11 and 12, front and back walls 13 and 14 and a bot-tom wall 15. The walls enclose a narrow interior space, open at the upper surface of the article to provide a slot 150, which is used to contain printed advertising material 16 and backing element or filler plate 17 keeping the advertising material in posit-ion.

It will be noted that the outer and inner surfaces are sloped slightly inwardly from the upper surface of the device as shown in FIGURE 1 toward its bottom as shown in FIGURES 2 and 3. The slope of the walls of the device provide a draft angle enabling the device to be removed from the mold in which it is formed as later explained.

The opening or slot a in the upper surface of the device is completely and permanently closed by a length of nail file 18 of a width equal to that of the opening and of slightly greater length than the length of the opening measured along the inwardly curved upper edge of the device, the material of which the nail file is made having sufiicient resilience to engage the ends of the slot 15a and retain the file in the slot.

A nail cleaning portion 19 is provided at the front of the device by a forwardly curved upper portion of the front wall 13 and inwardly sloped edges at the top surface of the device meeting in a rounded relatively sharp point 20.

At forward and rearward ends of the slot 15a supporting shoulders 21 and 22 are formed in the front and back walls 13 and 14. The end walls above said supporting shoulders are overhung or sloped inwardly as indicated at 23 and 24, FIGURE 2. It is an important object of the invention to produce the device at the lowest possible cost, and while it is obvious that various methods of production of the article may be utilized the article is preferably produced by molding the material of which it is made in liquid form and under pressure in a mold block containing a plurality of mold cavities, the mold cavities being kept cold by water circulated through the mold block. Removable cores are positioned in the molds and the material injected is rapidly cooled so that when the cores are withdrawn the molded articles are withdrawn with the cores and are readily stripped off the latter.

The material of which the device is formed may be any preferably clear thermo-setting plastic such as a polystyrene-butyrate mixture affording sufiicient impact strength. The article shown in the drawings is designed to be produced by the method described since with a mold block containing twelve molds a continuous production of three cycles or a production of thirty-six articles, per minute, is realized, but I do not wish to limit the scope of the invention to an article of the shape shown or to a particular method of producing it.

The nail file 18 used to close the slot 15a in the top surface of the article is made from strip steel and has sufficient resilience to wedge tightly against the undercut ends 23 and 24 of the slot and is of a width closely fitting in the slot 15a. Preferably but not necessarily the file is of inwardly curved cross section as clearly shown in FIGURE 3. In actual production the steel used is AISI 1020 and is about in thickness with teeth cut into its surface to a depth of about inch.

The advertising material may be printed or otherwise produced on heavy paper 16 cut to a size and held fiat against the inside of the transparent side walls of the article by a filler or backing and spacing element made for instance of cardboard and also cut to size.

In assembling the articles delivered from the molding machine which produces them to accurate dimensions, the worker inserts the particular advertising or other material to be displayed together with the backing member 17, this material being slightly shallower than the depth of the interior space in the article, and then presses in a strip of nail file having greater width than thickness by placing it in the slot 15a with its wide side substantially horizontal and bowing it inwardly until the ends snap under the undercut ends of the slot. The article will then be completely closed and the advertising matter consequently fully protected and since the article cannot be opened, there is no danger of the unauthorized change of the advertising matter.

A preferred embodiment of my invention has been specifically described and shown in the accompanying drawings by way of illustration but not as limitative of the invention since various modifications may be made by those skilled in the art without departing from the scope of the invention as defined by the appended claim.

What I claim is:

A combined pocket nail-cleaning device and advertising article comprising:

spaced transparent side walls connected together along one edge by a bot-tom wall and connected along the ends by front and back walls, providing an unobstructed interior space of the extent of the side 3 Walls, the edge opposite the connected edge being open to provide a slot;

supporting shoulders and inwardly sloped surfaces formed in the front and back walls on a level with the ends of the slot;

a filler member having advertising indicia thereon insertible through said slot to occupy substantially the Whole interior space of the device with said advertising indicia against the inner surfaces of the transparent side Walls;

a strip of finger-nail file having greater Width than thickness positioned in said slot to fill it from edge to edge with the edges of the file covered by the edges of the transparent sides and the ends of the strip of nail file resting on said shoulders and engaging under the inwardly sloped surfaces in the front and b ack walls, whereby access to the displayed indicia is prevented after said indicia has been initially enclosed in the device; and a finger nail-cleaning portion formed as an integral forwardly extending portion of the front wall of the device.

References Cited in the file of this patent UNITED STATES PATENTS Blom May 25,

Long July 19,

Smith Apr. 28,

Stinson May 29,

FOREIGN PATENTS Great Britain Oct. 16, 

